I think the parent comment refers to how the cost of this vehicle could instead prevent around one hundred thousand deaths from maleria*, or uplift several entire communities out of poverty, or provide education to thousands of children, or some other societal good.

* if we assume ballpark $300-400 million cost of construction.

A nice idea, but unfortunately that's not how resource allocation works.

I guess we could outlaw yachts and then collect money to lift all the people who used to build and work on yachts out of poverty :)

This is exactly what the United States did, except it printed money rather than confiscate it. (The end result was the same though -- taxation through inflation.)

Even the left-leaning NY Times wrote a piece on how "luxury taxes" on yachts killed the industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/03/opinion/l-boat-luxury-tax...

We don't have to outlaw yachts, just tax extreme wealth

I think the point was the millions spent on this boat could have been allocated instead to improving society, rather than a boat that will likely only get used once per year.

They didn’t build the boat out of bank notes. The $500M is in the pocket of the thousands of people involved in the supply chain for the shipyard. Much better use society-wise than keeping that value parked in financial instruments.

While I do agree that having money put to use is preferable to not, the argument that any spending is therefore good seems somewhat absurdist. We wouldn’t apply that logic to government spending, for example - the government gold-plating Air Force One produces different effects than the government building water sanitation, even though they both result in economic activity. Accordingly, some spending produces more social good than others. The argument that critics of spending like this isn’t that it would be better for the money to sit in financial instruments, it’s that the money would be better off partially captured via taxes and more directly allocated to social good.

Others have already commented in a similar manner but I think this is worth driving home since the argument you provide is so typical when it comes to these discussions.

The money spent on the yacht has improved society.

The evidence of such is that the public officials in Rotterdam are willing to temporarily move a bridge so that construction of the yacht can continue within their municipality. They see it as a greater benefit to their society to encourage the construction of such yachts. Oceanco employs 320 people whose salaries are likely taxed at a fairly high rate. They have two shipyards in Rotterdam on which they probably pay significant property tax among other fees. They are a manufacturing business and yachts consist of a huge variety of different materials and finished goods so they will be deeply integrated with the supply chain which means there is a large outflow of cash from them to other businesses. The production of luxury goods has a significant impact on an economy, by their nature they demand the highest quality parts and workmanship. Attracting those materials and skills to a city has many knock-on effects that are beneficial. If you removed the demand for or the option to buy super yachts, Rotterdam and other cities would suffer a loss of jobs, skills, tax income, and probably several other businesses.

I’m sure the boat builders are very happy to take the money. It’s not like the money just disappears.

The only resources being used up here are one boat’s worth of metal/plastic/energy/whatever. Probably about as much as a couple of hundred cars.

Money is fake, it's an abstraction made of cheap throw away goods (what money is printed on) used as a representation for real resources. I personally wouldn't count it as relevant but it does buy access to what is relevant.

I would add to your list, some of the finite resources I can think of that's wasted here is labor per human per year. The labor of those boat builders. It's an opportunity cost type of waste.

That and many hours of skilled work that could be applied elsewhere.

You could add “luxury yacht builder” to the very, very long list of jobs that exist only to provide entertainment to other people.

Indeed, but those people could make luxury yacht for 100 people, dividing uselessness by 100.

The world is probably full of things that shouldn't exist by that standard. Do we "need" all the big cathedrals, pyramids, temples, expensive to make works of art to name a few?

Well, it's his money.

The bridge is not in use any more. It has the status of a historical landmark (monument). In 2017 it has been renovated during which the 'bridge' part was removed for some time (years) and the city government promised that it would never be removed again. Now, they have agreed that this part of the bridge will be removed again for a certain period. Removing the part is not trivial as it was not designed to be easily removed.

Still, they probably considered that when they approved a shipbuilding business within their city borders.

Oceanco is not within Rotterdam municipal borders. It's downriver in Alblasserdam. But still, Rotterdam wants to keep the shipbuilding and outfitting industry in the region strong. Removing this bridge for a few days really isn't a big deal. If the yacht was not owned by someone well known it would not go beyond Rotterdam local news.

The building of the superyacht brings in money to the ship builders this is true, don't know how much will assume at least 1B if it costs 500M to move dismantle part of bridge.

But of course that money could have been spent on other things, it even seems suboptimal for Bezos, which implies to me he must have so much money he doesn't actually know what to do with it.

But even worse, the 500M to dismantle part of bridge evidently isn't considered in cost of superyacht so there is a loss of 500M from city's budget because of the money because building superyacht is worth more than this loss to city - but you can see how that is a worse deal for Rotterdam then if Bezos had superyacht built without needing to dismantle bridge.

This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around. It's not like Bezos caused this city to develop yachts, they built this industry there themselves and they need clients.

Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city.

>Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city.

This was not evident from the article?

>This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around

They build ships, they would have been looking for another building a ship contract.

I think they meant, building/owning a superyacht.